First drafts about lies and imagined moments from other people's lives.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

614

Back in Detroit, there’s this group of kids, people --some of them are kids. They’re experimenting with lord only knows what. Space and Time, they’d tell you.They’d tell you a lot of things, on rainy sundays, with sparkling mimosas and medicinal marijuana. On a Foggy Friday, in Ferndale, staring at fading indie rock singers who headline for men older, with more pizzaz and energy than a lot of the teenagers faux-mosh-pitting.Lee would look you in the eye, over the frames of her glasses, and before she opened her mouth to speak, she’s set her fingertips on your thighs, under the table. Lee would push her immaculate fingertips firmly down and she’s slowly lick her upper lip and she’d say, “I need you” and she’d pause dramatically before asking for a bottle of water, so she could sober up and drive home in time to let her dog out.Because shit just isn’t fun to clean up, and you’ve been out since eight thirty.It snowed, and you spun out on the way to the party these two gorgeous sisters were throwing. You spun out, hit a curb and knocked a wheel off. The tow truck driver told you you’d probably snapped an axel and you turned white. He drove you home.When you turned nineteen, you met a man with a sad eye (and an eyepatch) who collected window frames and broken glass. He was much older than you and he smiled a lot when you talked, and more as he answered your questions with more questions.He smiled as he answered the door to his apartment, on a fire escape. (“Don’t bother with the buzzer,” he told you, “I disconnected it. Just come up the fire escape, I’ll make sure its down for you.”) You were wearing your sexiest outfit, and he laughed despite himself and overly dramatically ushered you in.His living room and bedroom were the same size, and his kitchen and bathroom were tiny and it was all immaculate cast-offs and riff raff.You smoked pot and ate some peanut butter and psilocybin mushrooms and drank some whiskey with a squid (or something) on the label and he talked in such a sonorous voice that, despite the age difference, despite your friends’ warnings you went into his bedroom. And immediately out.He politely turned on some music while you pooped out the entirety of yourself, three times, wondering as you wiped, each time, “have I done this before?” and “Wow I’m fucked up” and you chuckled, but carefully, because you didn’t want to make a mess on his threadbare welcome towels.When you made it out, sweating, shirtless, from his bathroom you were so proud, the way you walked back to his bedroom, through the burgundy door, into the disorientation.He spoke calming words to you and you, slow transition, made it onto your back, onto your bed, staring out a window, straight up.Confused, you turned your head to the side, resting it assuredly against a leaky throw pillow with tiny bangles that jingled like rain.“Oh.” You said, disconcerted. “Another window.”Very clearly, the man with the eyepatch told you, “They’re all real. They’re all eyes.”You smiled languidly, jostling the pillow bangles with laconic fingers. “Eyes to the soul.” you flubbed, and he laughed.He said, “Exactly.” and handed you a glass pipe, which you toked from, heroically.You laughed and said, “Oops.” Then, after both your giggles wore off, you asked, “What’s this?” THe man with the eyepatch told you, “You’ll see.” And you did.Oh and you did.There was a shattering and a sundering and a cold breeze across your bare chest.